15 Answers
15

Ubuntu only supports upgrading from one version to the next version, or from one LTS version to the next LTS version. So you need to upgrade from 10.04 to 10.10, and only then to 11.04.

There are technical reasons for this restriction. When a new version of an existing package is installed it sometimes has to perform conversions, e.g., it may have to import existing settings into a new database format. In performing such conversions the packaging scripts have to make assumptions about the old format. If upgrades from all previous versions of Ubuntu were supported then this would quickly become a maintenance nightmare, as packaging scripts would have to be able to convert from all previously used formats to the current format. To avoid the nightmare, packaging scripts only in general support upgrading from the version of the package included in the previous Ubuntu release (and from the previous LTS release, in the case of a package included in an LTS release).

Upgrading directly from the penultimate, or earlier, version to the current version (called a "skip upgrade) is possible, but is liable to result in a misconfigured system.

Do you know of an official statement from Canonical/Ubuntu on this subject? Seems strange to me that they don't officially support this. Otherwise, why would the update-manager from Ubuntu 12.10 even give me the option to only upgrade to LTS releases if that will never be a possibility?
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Avian00Apr 23 '14 at 13:37

To update from an older version (very old in this case) than the previous version to the current version is highly not recommended. You are better off downloading the new release, doing a backup and then installing the new release.

If you are using Ubuntu 10.04 and REALLY REALLY want to update from that version up to the latest version then keep reading, if you are using Ubuntu 10.10 and also want to update from that version up to the latest version go to the second part. I should warn at least users from 10.10 that this involves downloading more than 2GB of data and will take you around a whole day. And even at the end it might be slower, give you errors, your connection will drop at some point or the computer will go crazy. This means that I do not give a guarantee that it will work flawlessly on every PC. So really think about it if you want to upgrade this way. I recommend reading this link: How do I upgrade from 10.04 or 11.10 to 12.04?

Here is an image that shows what 10.04 users should see after 12.04 was released:

UPDATE - if you are reading this after 12.04 came out, there should be an option in the Update Manager in 10.04 that says to upgrade from 10.04 to 12.04. This is the way to go since 12.04 came out.

For historical reasons I will leave the information below for users that wanted to know how to do it before 12.04 came out but if you are still in 10.04 please read here: How do I upgrade from 10.04 or 11.10 to 12.04? since fossfreedom created a very good and complete answer about upgrading from 10.04 to 12.04.

FIRST PART (For Ubuntu 10.04 Users BEFORE 12.04 came out)

If you are in Ubuntu 10.04 first you need to upgrade from 10.04 to 10.10 then from 10.10 to 11.04.The reason is that 10.04 is a LTS Version (Long Term Support) and as such it upgrades itself from one LTS to the other. So the next LTS would be 12.04. When 12.04 comes you will see an upgrade noticed on your 10.04. But if you still want to upgrade to 11.04 then do the following:

Ubuntu 10.04 to 10.10

Menu Way
1a. Using the menu go to System -> Administration -> Update Manager .

Keyboard Way
1b. ALT+F2 and Type gksu update-manager

When the Update manager opens and it does NOT show the "New Ubuntu Release Available" message in the upper part do the following steps:

2- Click on the SETTINGS button in the Update Manager on the lower left part of it. After the Software Sources Windows opens it should have you in the Update Tab where you will change the option Release Upgrade at the bottom. Change it from the one that it has to Normal Releases then close. What you did here was tell Ubuntu not to check for LTS versions but to check for normal version instead. Normal versions are the ones that come out every 6 months. LTS come out every 2 years. For example 8.04, 10.04, 12.04..

2.1 Open The Update Manager again following the Steps in 1a or 1b.

2.2. Click on the UPGRADE button that should appear there in the upper part. After finishing the upgrade reboot the PC and you should be in 10.10. Test it a little and then if you are 100% sure to go to 11.04 do the following:

SECOND PART (For Ubuntu 10.10 Users)

Ubuntu 10.10 to 11.04

ALT+F2 and Type 'gksu update-manager -d' to open the update-manager. The -d is to check if there is a Developing Version. Since 11.04 is still in development it will appear in the upper part of the Update Manager saying New Ubuntu Version 11.04 with a button to UPGRADE

Click on the UPGRADE button and follow it through.

IMPORTANT - Make sure you have ALREADY updated everything in Ubuntu 10.10. So you are ready for a clean upgrade to 11.04.

NOTE - From LTS to LTS you can actually update. For example 10.04 LTS to 12.04 LTS. But for any other like 10.10 you need to actually update from one release to the other until you get to the final one. In your case, before 12.04 came out you could update from 10.04 to 10.10 and then 10.10 to 11.04 and so on until 11.10. After 12.04 came out you can update directly to 12.04 since it is the next LTS released.

Downvoted, as this no longer answers the question. It got canonicalized...
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JjedMay 9 '12 at 6:55

3

Actually Jacob, this still answers the question even if you edited. The user is using 10.x and I am giving him an answer based on that. I will however add a "note" at the end making a point about the old to new upgrades.
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Luis Alvarado♦May 9 '12 at 15:07

Answers on SE sites are not for the asker alone, or even primarily. This answer already answers a partially irrelevant question (who wants to upgrade 10.04 -> 11.04 at this point?). Could you make your instructions more general? If so I will change to upvote.
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JjedMay 9 '12 at 15:13

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Actually I disagree partially. The answer is for the asker and the general users. When my answer was created it was so the user could update step by step as he was asking back then. This complies with the rules and answers the user. I also do not see how more general you would want it since it goes step by step and the note at the end mentions the 2 ways to update after 12.04 came out.
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Luis Alvarado♦May 9 '12 at 15:19

After looking for the word "canonicalized" (Did not know that one) I got your point. I thought you were somehow talking about Canonical and it got "canonicalized". Like it got Ubuntuzied or something. Anyhow will do the changes in the beginning so to not confuse readers.
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Luis Alvarado♦May 10 '12 at 6:52

You cannot skip versions between upgrades. The version between Jaunty and Lucid is Karmic. I suggest you do backup important data and do a complete reinstall as many things has changed, including the boot loader.

If you do not like a fresh install, you can upgrade using an Alternate CD.

@Yadnesh: be sure to make a backup, preferably with a disk imaging tool like Clonezilla so you can restore your disk if the upgrade goes wrong.
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LekensteynJun 9 '11 at 10:57

is there any chance of getting upgrade messed up??
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YadneshJun 9 '11 at 11:00

@Yadnesh: well, new settings do not always work well with old settings. In my upgrade from Jaunty to Karmic, many desktop widgets were moved. If possible, do a fresh install. Besides software issues, there are other issues too: the power can cut off, the hard drive can fail or the human throws coffee over the machine.
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LekensteynJun 9 '11 at 11:03

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@Yadnesh, @Lekensteyn, I'd suggest you remove all PPAs and other non-official repositories before starting the upgrade, and maybe also remove packages from those PPAs (e.g. using ppa-purge). And it's probably also a good idea to make sure 9.10 is up-to-date before doing the release-upgrade to 10.04...
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JanCJun 9 '11 at 12:27

No it's not possible.

using standard upgrade methods.

The only "point to point" release upgrades which work outside of the standard release to release upgrades, are LTS release upgrades. In other words you can upgrade from 8.04 -> 10.04 and 10.04 -> 12.04 without having to upgrade to each of the three other non-LTS versions in between. Otherwise you'll need to go next to 10.10 then to 11.04. Since you're not too far behind it shouldn't take long. Simply run the update manager as you normally would and follow the chain to 11.04.

If you were to try, you could simply pop in an 11.04 disk and install over the 10.10 installation. This should keep all of your home folder contents intact but will result in you having to re-install all of the software you had prior to the "re-installation"

Yes it is possible - and I've seen a few people try a force upgrade via sudo do-release-upgrade/or manually changing their sources.list - But...

dont do it...

Canonical only support an upgrade from LTS to LTS (i.e. 10.04 to 12.04), or from each intermediate version (10.04 - 10.10 - 11.04 - 11.10 - 12.04 - 12.10 etc.)

If you try to force an upgrade you could most likely break your system - files may not be upgraded or updated and most likely you will have a very strangely behaving system or even a system that wont boot.

I've also seen various people try to backup the /home and restore it on a fresh install. This does usually work - however - I personally prefer to do a clean fresh install a copy specific files from backup. The advantage of just copying specific files is that you clean out all the rubbish you've accumulated over the years.

yes - see @lekensteyn answer. My advice though - take this as an opportunity to start afresh - you will be surprised as to how much crud you collect over the years. Also you avoid any "upgrade" issues that you sometimes get such as incorrectly installed packages/conflicting packages from stuff you might have compiled/manually installed.
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fossfreedom♦Jun 9 '11 at 10:54

@JanC - exporting his mailbox is a better answer. The key problem with copying the hidden files is that the structure of the config files could & probably have changed. If you replace new config files with old, you'll get non functioning apps/theme problems and other issues.
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fossfreedom♦Jun 9 '11 at 12:17

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@fossfreedom @JanC: export if possible and copy everything. Even if applications can convert old config files, it's not flawless (new features do not get integrated and take strange defaults)
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LekensteynJun 9 '11 at 12:47

You can do the method above without having to install apache or changing /etc/hosts. Just save the meta-release file from wget somewhere (except on top of /etc/update-manager/meta-release) and edit it as described. Then, in /etc/update-manager/meta-release, change the "URI = http://....." line to "URI = file:///path/to/my/edited/meta-release/file"

Also, for do_release_upgrade to work, in your edited meta-release file, you have to change the archive in the URLs for Release-File, Upgrade-Tool and UpgradeToolSignature from http://archive.... to http://old-releases...

The nice thing about this is that there's no need to install apache and everything it pulls in - I was using it on a minimal system and I didn't want all those things pulled in. It also means you can edit the meta-release file without being root.

You only need root for editing the /etc/update-manager/meta-release file and then running do-release-upgrade.

I've attempted this, but have found that the various karmic updates usually located at archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists have been removed. do-release-upgrade is failing as a result... Ideas?
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PeteMay 11 '12 at 20:13

You still need to follow the guide for End Of Life (EOL) Ubuntu upgrades :) You can find it here: help.ubuntu.com/community/EOLUpgrades/Jaunty It will advise you to replace archive.ubuntu.com by old-releases.ubuntu.com in your /etc/apt/sources.list This was not mentionned in the question but was implied (seeing the problem Yadnesh encountered)
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HuygensMay 12 '12 at 10:34

@Pete did the resource I sent you solved your problem? Did it work for you?
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HuygensMay 14 '12 at 7:41

I ended up trying to use a combination of your fix, and the alternative CD approach mentioned in another answer. Sadly, the machine became non-responsive remotely and our IT seems to only be able to mount the partitions, not boot it. Fresh install here I come! Thanks anyways.
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PeteMay 14 '12 at 13:59

Automatic, remote, incremental updating to latest version

I will not repeat the answers of others, but I do know how to achieve the effect of going from one old release to the latest. This requires access to another machine with a terminal and ssh installed so that you can automate the process by using ssh and a loop in the shell. See this answer for how to incrementally upgrade from your current version to the latest version.